Flowers of the fairest

For the past eight years, my Mary statue has been on our old, cracked patio. I would make up for the icky concrete by putting flowerpots at her feet; it looked nice when they were in bloom.

But our backyard recently underwent a major and much-needed overhaul. Goodbye, old ratty concrete and ugly podicarpus and oversized palm tree that always had me worried it would collapse on our neighbor’s house in a storm; hello, new lawns and curved flowerbeds and the chance to create an entirely new garden layout from scratch. And there was one feature that was a very, very high priority for me.

“I’m going to give the Mary statue a special corner in the new yard,” I told my husband.

“Nobody puts Mary in a corner,” he said.

But I did, and earlier this week I planted all kinds of flowers around her. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

There’s actually a long, long history of Mary gardens in European countries. Often you find in them flowers which were named after Mary herself (including marigolds, or “Mary’s Gold”). I included several of those, bright and sunny.

I also found a bleeding heart at a nursery and had to put it in, too (that’s another flower traditionally associated with Mary, for obvious iconographic reasons).

Mostly, though, I went for colors I like and flowers that I thought would do well in our corner. It’ll need a little time to fill in; I’m counting on time and Miracle-Gro to help with that.

But it’s a lovely new little space, the focal point of our new yard. And I think Mary is pretty happy in her own little corner.